


Home Awaiting

by ardett



Series: The Five Year Gap [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anger, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Phone Calls & Telephones, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Spider-Man: Far From Home Trailer, it deals with the time skip, these are the worst tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 12:23:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19173202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardett/pseuds/ardett
Summary: "The world needs the next Iron Man."





	Home Awaiting

**Author's Note:**

> it's a only a little important to read the first fic in this series, bascially Peter and Harley met at Tony's funeral
> 
> title [x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F1l6xXLSI0)

_ Beep _

_ “Hey, it’s Peter. Parker. Call me back when you get the chance.” _

_ Beep _

_ “It’s Peter. Again. Call me when you can.” _

_ Beep _

_ “This is Peter. Is this Harley Keener’s number? Please let me know if I’m getting through. Thanks. Call me back.” _

_ Beep _

_ “I’m going to Italy for a few days. So if you call… Well, yeah, anyway, if you call, I’ll get back to you. Oh, it’s Peter.” _

_ Beep _

_ “Harley, I really need to talk to you. Please call—"  _ Harley picks up.

“Stop calling me,” he growls down the receiver. And then he hangs up.

The phone rings again. Harley powers it off. He watches as his shiny new Starkphone turns itself back on and picks up the call.

_ “Harley, come on, please just hear me out—” _

Harley grabs the phone, gritting his teeth as he hisses, “What the hell do you want? I told you to stop fucking calling me, Parker.”

His anger is like a ravenous thing, starving for a bloody kill. His anger has needle teeth, sharp words, and talons that are just waiting to rip their next victim apart. His anger is a beast and it’s so so hungry and even more so, it’s exhausted. But it keeps raging.

He wishes he weren’t so angry all the time, but it seems like that’s all he can remember. He’s been cheated out of five years of his life and he had no idea. So many people had been cheated. So many people dead. So many returned and so many left that way.

He remembers the dusting, the feeling of his body shifting apart, and the moment he coalesced into an empty living room on his knees. It felt like seconds he was gone, not years. He thought he had passed out but then he saw the pictures on the wall. They were still of his family, but they were older. There was one of his sister in a graduation cap. There was a picture of him with an unlit candle next to it, wick charred and length melted. His bedroom had been stripped away, empty when he stumbled over to it. That’s where his family found him, crouched against the door frame, staring at the bare floors.

It’s hard to know if his family even wanted him back after all this time.

Everyone is trying to regain some sense of normality. There are special tracks set up in schools for people who were dusted. People returned to jobs where they could. Vacant buildings have been repurposed to house anyone who needs it.

Just as Harley was trying to readjust himself, Peter Parker calls. And calls. And calls.

As if Peter Parker isn’t Spider-man, one of the few people who still has purpose in this world. As if Spider-man’s returned wasn’t rejoiced by all of New York City while Harley’s small town in Tennessee barely wants him back. As if Peter Parker wasn’t there for Tony’s final moments when Harley only got a phone call from some security guard letting him know when the funeral was.

As if it doesn’t feel like Peter Parker might be the only one who wants him anymore.

He doesn’t say any of that. Instead he says, “Just because we talked at his funeral, doesn’t mean we have to be friends.”

There’s a sharp inhale.  _ “I… I know that. But don’t you think… I don’t know. Maybe he would have wanted that? For us to… to at least know each other? For one of us to take up his legacy?” _

Harley wants to laugh. “He didn’t want us. He barely even knew us,” he chokes out. The words burn. His nails dig into his palm. “I knew him for what, all of three days? You guys worked together for three years tops? He had a kid, a real one, and he watched her grow up for five years. Five years is more than a quarter of my entire life. I don’t even know why I was at that funeral.” This time he does laugh but it tastes bitter coming up.

_ “Harley—"  _ Peter starts to murmur.

“And who are you to make that choice?” He gets louder. “Who the fuck do you think you are? Iron Man? You think you can just call and force my phone to pick up and get whatever you want?”

_ “I… Sorry, that’s not—I would never try to replace—Look, you don’t understand.” _

“I don’t understand?  _ I don’t understand?”  _ Harley’s voice rises. “It’s been five years.  _ Five years.  _  I was supposed to graduate in a year. Now some of my friends are graduating college. My sister’s older than me. I haven’t seen my dad since I was six and now he’s here. My parents have been back together for two years and I wasn’t here for any of it and they mourned me and now I’m back. We’re all back and no one knows what the hell to do with us because we were supposed to  _ stay dead! _ ” He’s panting from the yelling and as he blinks, he realizes his lashes are wet. He rubs a sleeve over his eyes as he mutters, “So don’t tell me I don’t understand.”

There’s static from the other end of the line. Then,  _ “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I know everything’s different now. I know I got lucky.  A lot of people I know were dusted. We came back together. When we didn’t have anywhere to go, Pepper let me and my aunt stay in the tower. But there’s…”  _ A slow exhale. _  “There’s something I need to ask you. Is there any way we could talk face to face?” _

“Why can’t you just ask me now? You’ve been calling me for weeks and now you want me to what? Just drop everything and come to New York? Do you know how hard it is to get a plane ticket right now? If you have something to say,” Harley snarls. “just say it.”

As he paces the room, Harley feels a tremor in his knees. It feels like falling apart, like the memory of falling into his mother’s arms, falling to his knees, falling through his sister’s fingers as he turned to dust.

At least he had people to see him go. At least his family wasn’t left wondering for years whether he had been dusted or lost somewhere in the chaos and anguish of a world ripped in half. At least they knew he wasn’t one of the millions who died in the aftermath, stranded on ships with no one to hear their distress calls or crashed in fiery cars and falling airplanes or crushed under the gangs and military regimes and religious fanatics who all thought they were right or one of those left with no way to come home or no home to come back to.

That’s not even the worst of it. Loved ones have finally returned. The world,  _ the universe,  _ is finally being realigned. The damage should be undone. But the world got used to the damage. The world got used to a population halved. The world was prepared to move on. Now there’s twice as many people to house and feed and educate and there’s not enough. Just like before, there’s not enough to go around.

The world has gotten better though, in ways Harley never thought it would. There are worldwide efforts for communication and collaboration. There’s smarter tech to distribute resources. There’s planetary peace, the kind that could only come from catastrophe and the need of every country to work together.

And Harley still doesn’t know if they’ll pull through.

_ “It’s kind of sensitive information,”  _ Peter says. Harley’s knees shake.

“What,” Harley leans against the kitchen counter. “Like how you’re Spider-man?”

_ “Harley.” _ For a second, it sounds like Peter’s going to shout. But then his voice goes pleading.  _ “Please, just come out to New York. Don’t worry about the plane ticket. We can get you out here, we’ll buy the ticket or send a jet or something, just—” _

Harley cuts him off. “You can’t replace him, you know that, right? You can’t just throw his money around like it’s yours and snap your fingers and-- fuck—and wave your fairy godmother wand and make people do what you want! That money should be for his family—”

_ “I’m not trying to replace him!”  _ Peter screams and the sound is angry and lost and desperate. Harley can hear his shuddering breaths.  _ “I’m not trying to replace him.”  _ Peter’s voice drops to a whisper.  _ “That’s what I’m asking you to do.” _

Harley’s lungs stop working. He can hardly hear, hardly see. The world is suspended for one endless moment. Then Harley’s fingers tighten on the counter.

“No.” And he hangs up.

**Author's Note:**

> I really don't know where I'm going with this


End file.
